Sweet Escape
by tesha198
Summary: Rogue has left the institute and while the rest of the team tries to bring her back, Remy has his own ideas. This stories rating is tentative, obviously nothing has happened yet but in future chapters it will. Also I don't own any of the characters.
1. Chapter 1

Rogue huddled under the bridge, her gloved hands pressed to her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the world that was crashing down around her. The sky was black, only illuminated by the flashes of lightning cracking across it every so often. She had never fared well in storms; they seemed to bring out the worst in her. She rest her head against her knees, praying for it to finish quickly, for the earth to stop trembling beneath her feet and the tears to stop streaming down her cheeks.

Every boom of thunder brought forth flashes of a life she wanted nothing more than to forget. No matter how far she ran or where she hid, that sound always found her, haunted her like a ghostly echo of her past sins. She could feel it in her bones, even when she managed to drown out the sound the vibrations rang through her clear as day.

A part of her thought it was the universes way of ensuring she never forgot, an inescapable nightmare that could find her wherever she went. She wondered if anyone would notice if the storm brought the bridge crashing down onto her, or if anyone would care for that matter.

A car drove slowly by, desperately trying to remain on the road despite the storms other intentions. Through the rain streaked car window she could see a small girl staring back at her. Their gazes met and the girl smiled and waved, her clear blue eyes filled with childhood innocence and unconditional acceptance. She tore her gaze away and slammed her eyes shut, not wanting to see her tainted self mirrored back at her through someone so innocent.

Then she heard it. The sound was blood curdling, the screech of metal scraping across pavement. She looked up to see the little girls car flipped on its side and a group of people surrounding it. Rogue jumped to her feet, the storm still raging around her suddenly seeming unimportant.

The people made no move to help the girl or her family; they crowded around the demolished car and began to rock it. Obscenities filled the night air, drowning out the storm and making her wish, for once, that the thunder would grow louder. The crowd pushed and yelled as the family desperately tried to protect their crying daughter from the mob.

"You're not welcome here mutant!"

"Go die!"

"Why don't you fight back you freak!?"

Flashes of her old life began flooding her mind, the people she had put in comas or worse, her home at the institute, the hoards of people who would brutally and senselessly attack her family just because they were different. Rogue met the girl's eyes, red and glossy from tears, and felt her own body tense with rage.

"Why don't yah pick on someone yur own size?" she cut through the noise of the crowd like a knife, watching as their eyes one by one turned to fall on her.

"This doesn't concern you." A man huffed gruffly at her. "We're just taking care of a little… problem."

"Actually it does." She threw back at him, narrowing her eyes into a piercing glare that made him flinch. "If she's a _li'l_ problem then I'm the _biggest_ problem you'll ever have."

She removed a glove from one of her hands and shoved it into the pocket of her jacket. The man eyed her cautiously as she approached him, then cried out as she wrapped her bare hand around his exposed throat. The rest of the crowd watched in horror as the man convulsed at her touch then collapsed unmoving onto the cold wet pavement.


	2. Chapter 2

Wolverine and Kurt raced to the front gates of the institute, followed closely by the rest of the team. The instant the iron gates had opened everyone had known who it had to be, the only person who wasn't already there, Rogue. After weeks of searching for her and weeks of failure to find her, she had just typed her security code into the front gates to the mansion.

Wolverine flung the large wooden mansion doors open with such force the team trailing behind him worried they'd been broken. Then he froze, sending the rest of them slamming into his ridged back. There, walking up the winding path to the mansion, was not Rogue but rather a small girl holding the hands of two people they assumed were her parents.

"Who the hell are they." Wolverine growled, clenching his fists to refrain from hitting something.

"Vhere's Rogue?" Kurt ground out, a little more than disappointed to see complete strangers where he had expected to see his sister.

"I think it best to not crowd the girl," Professor Xavier stated, rolling up behind them in the doorway. "Her powers are still volatile because of her young age. As for Rogue, I believe these people can answer some of our questions."

He smiled at the girl, giving her a mental _hello_ that made her ice blue eyes widen in surprise, then ushered the family into the mansion and towards his office. The team trailed behind them; careful not to startle the people who were the first lead to their missing family member they'd come across in what seemed like a lifetime.

"So tell me, how is it you found the institute?" Xavier asked as Jean offered the parents a cup of tea.

"A young woman led us here" the father stated, glancing around uncomfortably. "After she saved us from a bad situation."

The professor nodded in understanding, seeing the scene play out in the father mind as he spoke.

"She said I'd be safe." The little girl piped up, still clinging to her mother for reassurance.

Xavier smiled, assuring her she would be, and continued with the usual conversation that followed someone finding their secret school.

The team crowded in the hallway restlessly, straining to hear any information they could relating to Rogue. After what seemed like hours of Wolverine angrily pacing and Kurt anxiously popping in and out of the hall, the professor finally emerged from his study followed by the family. He directed them towards the dorms then drew his attention to the group of impatient mutants crowding his hall.

"Well?" Wolverine grunted, exhaling and filling the cramped space with cigar smoke.

The professor raised his brow at him and Wolverine grumbled something about stress smoking then knowingly snuffed out the cigar. Satisfied the professor turned to the rest of the group.

"From what I could gather it seems Rogue took it upon herself to save the young girl from a mob of angry anti-mutant activists. Based on the images I could extract from the family's memories she looked unharmed both before and after the scuffle. She didn't give the family much information about herself, and certainly none regarding where she was heading, however the father saw the direction she took when she left them. I believe with this and her use of power I should have some luck locating her using Cerebro."


	3. Chapter 3

Rogue exhaled, watching as the world flew by outside the boxcar. After dropping the family at the institute she had hurriedly gotten as far as she could from her old home. She knew they'd have already begun searching for her again and she intended to put as much distance as possible between them. She hoped she would find it in herself to return to them eventually but she wasn't ready for that yet, and she didn't want them to influence her decision.

At first she'd had no idea what her next move was going to be, so she'd simply put one foot in front of the other. Lost in the maze of thoughts filling her mind her body moved as if on autopilot, and by the time she'd tuned back into reality she'd found herself on a train heading to an all too familiar place.

She smiled to herself as the city scenery slowly transformed into the all to familiar forests and swamps she'd long been missing. The rails whined in protest as the train screeched to a stop and she quietly jumped out of the boxcar before she was discovered as a stowaway. Louisiana was close enough to Mississippi to travel the rest of the way on her own accord and she found herself excited to explore New Orleans before continuing on.

The city lights at night were almost magical, accompanied by the familiar jazz tunes that often lined the streets. People crowded into small clubs and laughed carelessly as they passed her by, oblivious to the world around them. She felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, all the pressure and guilt she'd been bottling up was simply sucked into the freedom that was New Orleans.

She continued on, stopping every so often to window shop before deciding she had lingered too long out of habit. She turned the corner into the main square, almost floating in her newfound liberation, only to have a million pounds of led dropped down on her in the form of a Cajun mutant. She'd run into him so hard she had to catch herself for fear of falling backwards onto the sidewalk. The second she realized who was standing before her, surrounded by a group of men who looked a little more than rough around the edges, she froze.

He raised his eyebrows at her reaction to seeing him, clearly amused by her expression. Anger prickled at the back of her mind as she unfroze and set her face into a stone mask.

"Gambit." She stated, both in recognition and farewell, as she gracefully walked past him and his band of goons.

She heard his low chuckle then his footsteps behind her as her premonition of him not letting her go so easily was confirmed.


	4. Chapter 4

"Can ah help you?" Rogue snapped, finally reaching her breaking point when a young child ran from the site of the group of men trailing behind her.

"Just window shopping, Cherie." Gambit answered.

His voice exuded arrogance and she knew that if she were to turn and face him he would undoubtedly have a smirk plastered on his face.

"You know, Cherie, I'm sure the Rippers would be none too happy to know you're in town."

Rogue stopped, inhaling to brace herself before turning to face him. He stood casually, his hands in his trench-coat pockets. She narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed with his calm demeanor in the face of such ludicrous threats. He returned her glare with his own, his black and red eyes boring into hers until finally she forced herself to look away. When she looked back at him his smirk had returned and his eyebrows were raised, as if anticipating her retort.

"An' just what are you implying, exactly?" Rogue crossed her arms over her chest, already regretting her decision to de-board the boxcar.

"Perhaps our humble abode would be willing to take you in for the night." He gestured from his person to the gaggle of men leaning on shop walls just behind him. Their eyes darted to Rogue then continued to survey their surroundings, as if anticipating some heinous attack at any moment.

She cringed, adamantly against spending any amount of time with them, never mind Gambit himself. Frankly she was surprised Gambit could ever think she would agree to such a thing.

"Not interested." She stated, perhaps too bluntly, before shaking her head and walking away once again.

"You misunderstand, Cherie, it _ain't_ negotiable." He chuckled, grabbing her backpack from her shoulder and tossing it to one of the men before she had time to react.

"Don't make me hurt yah." Rogue cautioned, removing one of her gloves and extending her hand towards Gambit's face, stopping just short of contact.

"Come now Cherie, we both know you don't want to do that. Since you're here alone I'm thinking the others don't know where you are, yes? How fast, I wonder, will it take them to find you once you use your powers?" His smirk was almost unbearable to look at as he spoke.

How easy it would be to close the short gap between her hand and his face. To drop him and be long gone before he had any hope of looking for her. But he was right, and she hated him for it. The second she touched him she would become her own personal locator beacon for the institute to track, and she valued her anonymity too much to waste it on a couple of goons. Hesitantly, she lowered her hand and pulled the glove back on, unable to keep her scowl from deepening as she did so.

"Fine." She stated sharply, allowing him to lead her towards his home, pausing only to push him away from her person when he tried to wrap his arm around her hips and smirking contentedly as he stumbled.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Authors Note_****: so this chapter is mostly backdrop scene setting for future escapades in the story. Also I know that the chapters up to now have been ridiculously short but I had midterms and didn't have much time to write them. They're going to be getting back to a reasonable length now though. Please R&R**

Rogue trailed silently behind Gambit as he led her through the house. Her eyes darted from room to room and person to person. The longer she was here the more she noticed this was less so a house so much as a stronghold. Every man they passed carried some sort of weapon and eyed her suspiciously, as if she were an intruder. It made her feel on edge, as if she was going to be attacked at any minute, and she found herself clenching and unclenching her hands as she walked. Every room she passed was arranged to be easily defensible, never was there a chair with its back to a window or door.

She was so distracted by her surroundings she didn't even realize that Gambit had stopped walking until she slammed into his back. She cursed under her breath and grabbed the bridge of her nose, fighting back the tears that come with smashing your nose into something hard.

"Your room, Cherie." Gambit smirked, opening the heavy door and gesturing for her to enter.

She hesitated, eyeing him warily, before briskly walking past him and rolling her eyes as he tried to trace his hand across the back of her shoulders.

The room was large, a canopy bed stood in the middle of the back wall and a bulky rustic looking dresser was pressed against the right side of the room. To the left was a door leading to what she hoped was a bathroom. It was homey, and reminded her of her childhood bedroom back in Mississippi albeit it was substantially larger.

She smiled, subtly scratching her cheek to hide it from Gambit.

"So where's m'ah backpack?" Rogue asked, surveying the room and finding it wasn't there.

"It's safe" Gambit chuckled.

She glared at him, then turned and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

From the other side of the door she could hear Gambit chuckle and listened to his footsteps as he left the room. The click of the room door echoed as he pulled it shut, leaving Rogue with her thoughts.

She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, cringing at the face staring back at her. Her hair was windblown and messy, her skin pinkish from the sun and slightly dirty from living on the road for so long. She ran her fingers through her hair, getting them caught in tangles and slowly beginning to work them out. Behind her she spots the shower, and gets in. The water flows over her skin, warming her from the bitter cold so many frigid nights had seared into her bones. Her hair washed clean and her body relaxed she got out and redressed, slightly agitated to have to put on the same clothes as her backpack was being used as a hostage.

She left the bathroom, taking another look around the room before quietly opening the bedroom door and peering out. When she was sure Gambit wasn't around she opened the door all the way and walked out. The halls all looked the same and she soon found herself wandering with no direction, searching for the kitchen. That's when she heard his voice. He was talking to another man, the voice of which she didn't recognize, and was coming towards her quickly. Without thinking she ducked into the nearest closed door and held her breath.

When his voice disappeared down the hall she finally exhaled. Turning she saw a few men staring at her in confusion. She smiled awkwardly, mouthed the word sorry, and left the room once more to find the kitchen.

After what seemed like an eternity of aimlessly wandering she finally caught the smell of fried chicken and began to follow it through the house.

The kitchen was huge, and filled with people. Various men sat and stood around tables, laughing and drinking beer. The fried chicken was being cooked by a woman who every so often would scold the men for their rowdiness in a thick Cajun accent and crude manner of speaking. She snickered, amazed by how much her mannerisms resembled Gambit's.

The woman turned, startled by the sound of a woman's laugh amongst the men, and upon seeing Rogue broke into what can only be described as a beaming smile.

"You must be Rogue!" she twittered, walking up and ushering her into the kitchen.

Rogue nodded, unable to prevent a smile from creeping onto her face. She peered beyond the woman and at the chicken, smiling sheepishly as the woman laughed and offered her a piece. One of the men, who'd clearly had too much to drink, sauntered up to the women and slung his arm around Rogue's waist.

"I love a woman with an appetite." The man slurred into Rogue's ear.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Gambit's voice rang from the kitchen doorway.

The man laughed and slapped Rogue's ass as if to prove Gambit wrong, only to be met with a swift punch in the face from Rogue as she angrily forced him to release his grip on her waist. He cursed and stumbled backwards, blood dripping from his nose.

"Tried to warn you." Gambit chuckled, uncrossing his arms from his chest and walking towards Rogue. "You weren't in your room, Cherie."

She frowned, fuming from the drunkard's advances and irritated from having to be there in the first place.

"Ah wasn't aware Ah was forbidden to leave." Rogue snapped, finishing off her piece of chicken.

"A southern gal!" the woman screeched, overjoyed.

Gambit chuckled, nodding but otherwise ignoring the statement, never taking his eyes off of Rogue.

"Backpack or not, Ah have business so I'm leaving." Rogue ground out, refusing to stay within 100 feet of the obnoxious men in the house any longer.

Before she had a chance to leave, however, a familiar man stepped into the kitchen doorway, baring her path.

"Jean-Luc" Rogue stated, folding her arms across her chest.

"Deadly as ever, I see." He replied, amusedly looking past Rogue at the man nursing what appeared to be a broken nose.

She merely raised an eyebrow, silently asking why he was stating what was obvious. His face drew into a serious gaze as he looked back at Rogue.

"We've been having some… shall we say problems, with the Assassins Guild ever since you're last visit." He stated flatly, looking at her as if to say it was entirely her fault. "Maybe you could…"

"No." Rogue interceded, already seeing where his request was leading.

"But" he continued.

"Yah don't need me to get to them." she spat.

"No I don't, but I do need your powers." He replied, a sadistic grin spreading across his features.

"No." she stated matter-of-factly.

Jean-Luc opened his mouth as if to continue his hounding, but Rouge cut him off before he even had a chance to utter a word.

"Do Ah look like Gambit to yah?" she stated flatly. "Ah don't owe you anything, and frankly Ah _don't_ like yah."

Gambit clicked his tongue behind her as if to remind her he was standing right there, and she was sure his face was pulled into a displeased scowl even without turning to face him.

"This ain't over!" Jean-Luc yelled after her as Rogue pushed past him and furiously stomped to her room.


	6. Chapter 6

Rogue glared out the window of her room at the men patrolling the grounds below. It had been days since her run in with Jean Luc, days of him berating her with everything from demands to pleading. His methods changed with his mood, which meant they changed constantly and without warning. He yelled, he spoke calmly, he even pressured her with the weight of his silence while following her around the house. Frankly she was beginning to get whiplash from his emotional rollercoaster and literally ran when she saw him approaching.

There was nowhere to run but her room however, as the house had become more of a prison than anything else. She'd been trying to leave, but each escape attempt had been met with failure and recapture. Jean Luc wanted her, and he wasn't letting her go easily.

She heard a knock on the door and narrowed her eyes in further irritation but didn't move.

Gambit had been gone since yesterday, out on some secret assignment she wasn't allowed to know about, which only added to her anger. He was the one who had brought her here, and now he was out enjoying freedom and she was stuck in a slightly larger than average room she hadn't wanted to be in in the first place.

"You have'ta come out some time." Jean Luc griped through the wooden door, clearly unhappy with being ignored.

"Ah'm warnin' yah Jean Luc." Rogue shot back icily, unwilling to play he-said-she-said for the millionth time that evening.

The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, painting the sky with magnificent shades of orange and yellow. She smiled; the promise of nightfall meant only one thing, the promise of escape. She'd spent the entire day surveying the men outside her window on their patrol routes, pinpointing key weaknesses in their line and timing their movements over and over again to ensure she wouldn't be caught. Between her many failed escapes and her detailed surveillance she was becoming a self-taught expert on the Guild's security, or rather lack-there-of.

She heard a loud bang as Jean Luc punched a wall in the hallway and then listened as his footsteps faded into silence.

The only thing missing from her escape was her backpack, which was still being held hostage somewhere despite her best efforts to find it. She ground her teeth together, frustrated that she had to leave behind the only belonging she still owned. But after days of it not turning up she'd finally decided it was a sacrifice that had to be made.

Rogue turned from the window, the sun almost completely out of sight as darkness began to consume the once bright world beyond the glass panes. She opened the bathroom door, turning the shower on and leaving it to run. She then locked the bathroom door and made her way back to the window, opening it just enough to squeeze out.

She waited, counting the guards' rotations in her head as she'd been doing all day. Finally the moment she'd been waiting for came and the gap in the line widened as the men walked by her window each heading in opposite directions. She scrambled down the trellis as fast as she could, never so grateful to be wearing thick gloves in her life as the rose thorns tried to eat away at her hands with little success. She hit the ground running, not looking back as she scaled the wall surrounding the premises and landed softly on the other side.

"Up to no good again, Cherie?" a familiar voice purred from her right, nearly making her jump out of her skin.

"What do _you_ want?" she whispered, waiting for her heart to stop thundering like a stampede in her chest.

Gambit smirked, stepping out from the shadows that'd been masking him from view. "What most men want." He smirked perversely drawing his gaze slowly up her body.

Rogue rolled her eyes and scoffed before walking away from both him and the house behind her. His footsteps were faint but she knew he was following her the moment he started to move.

"Yah can't stop me Gambit." She stated matter-of-factly, not bothering to slow her pace nor turn to face him.

"I ain't trying, Cherie." He sounded so sure of himself that she almost believed him. Almost.

"And Jean Luc?" she pressed, turning her head slightly so he could see her incredulous expression.

He simply shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and continued to trail behind her. She sighed, almost certain he wasn't going away.

The brush opened up to a paved road soon enough and she stepped out of the tree cover, looking around for any type of vehicle. She sighed, finding the road abandoned.

"Which way?" she asked, turning to find Gambit no longer there.

She cursed under her breath at his insufferable timing and began walking along the paved road.

"Need a lift, Cherie?" his familiar voice called over the purr of an engine, as he pulled up beside her in a red convertible.

She arched an eyebrow at him, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"You didn't expect to walk all the way to Mississippi did you?" he chuckled, shaking his head in amusement.

"Where'd yah get this?" she smiled, jumping in quickly.

"Thieves Guild has lots of fun toys." He smiled, revving the engine and jetting off down the road at a break neck speed.

Rogue laughed, the warm wind brushing through her hair and across her skin. She closed her eyes basking in the freedom of it as Gambit flipped on the radio and watched his home disappear in his review mirror.


End file.
